Each day after morning prayers, they would grill fish or duck over the brazier and eat it with leeks or onions. Jonathan organized a latrine for them in the bows of the Scarab, with the chamber pot and a blanket which could be pulled across for privacy. At the hottest time of the day Nathan unrolled the reed awning to make a patch of tiger striped shade.
They all took turns sailing and steering, even Seth. The tiller was a low fat piece of wood, as thick as Jonathan’s thigh. You could either sit and hold it, or stand with it between your knees and steer with your legs. Nathan showed them what to look out for: a patch of rough water on a smooth surface meant underlying rocks, water of a paler colour warned of a sandbank, a half-submerged branch could spell danger.
He showed them how to angle the sail to catch the wind or to spill it.
They also took turns scanning the west bank for riders on camels, but only once did they see a rider on his camel, and he was heading north. Most people in this region rode donkeys or travelled on foot.
The cool green scent of the river mingled with the tang of human sweat and the sweet smell of the blue lotus, just beginning to bloom. The sun grew hotter and the river glittered with a myriad of silver spangles. They saw water buffalo up to their necks and donkeys drinking thirstily. Men fished with plank and net or with lines, little boys splashed in the river, girls washed clothes, and at dusk the village women came down to fill their jugs.
As soon as the sun set, the moon rose. It bathed the world in a light unlike any Flavia had ever seen. In Italia, Greece and even the deserts of Libya, the moonlight made the world silver and black, but here in Egypt the moon was like a pale sun. Colours were not deadened, but softened: the tufts of palm trees were emerald green, a sand bar white as snow, the river a luminescent blue. Even the mud villages looked beautiful, their whitewashed domes became pearls and their waterwheels dripping sapphire bracelets.
The warm wind hummed in the rigging, but apart from that they ran silent. Silent enough to hear a distant donkey’s bray or the desert jackal’s haunting cry at night. There were other boats taking advantage of the miraculous wind and they did not want to draw attention to themselves. If a boatman hailed them, Nathan always answered in Egyptian, making the correct remarks and ending with prayers for a good journey.
Five days after they had first set out, shortly after midnight on the Ides of May, they were rounding a bend in the river when Flavia heard the distant sounds of revelry. She stood up to get a better look. A town emerged from the darkness, on the west bank of the river. It was lit by a thousand torches, perhaps for some festival. Above the mud domes and palm-thatched roofs loomed the massive head of the jackal-god, lit eerily from below.
‘Anubis,’ said Nathan, who always took the tiller at night. ‘God of graveyards and deserted places.’
Flavia made the sign against evil, and nudged the others awake with her foot.
‘Mnnnph!’ said Jonathan. ‘Who’s kicking me?’
‘Look!’ whispered Flavia. ‘Look at that massive statue of Anubis.’
‘That must be Cynopolis,’ said Nathan. ‘City of Dogs. It looks as if they are having a feast. This might be a good chance for us to stop under cover of night and pick up provisions.’
Flavia nodded eagerly. ‘And see if we’re any closer to finding Nubia.’
The sounds of revelry grew louder as they approached the town. Flavia could hear women singing, men laughing, children shouting, the shrill piping of flutes and the patter of drums. The moon was lopsided, but bright enough to show the way over sandy ground. Flavia glanced back at Nathan, who had agreed to stay behind to guard the boat. She could see his white conical cap and his white teeth as he waved at her.
A path of yellow torchlight stretched out from the arched door of the town gate and they followed this in.
Flavia had never seen so many dogs in one place. Yellow dogs, brown dogs, white dogs, cream dogs with brown or black spots. There were even dogs who looked part jackal. Most of them were gnawing bones or sleeping. Plump puppies slept beside their well-fed mothers.
‘Oh, look at the sweet puppies!’ she exclaimed. ‘They look much happier than the dogs in Ostia.’
‘They may be better-fed,’ said Jonathan, ‘but they’re not very healthy. Look how diseased most of them are. It would be kinder to cull some of them.’
‘I wonder what they’re celebrating?’ said Flavia as a fresh burst of laughter reached her ears.
‘Of course!’ cried Seth, suddenly. ‘Dogs are honoured here. Strabo talks about a sacred feeding for all the dogs of the town. I believe it is a festival for the townspeople, too.’
‘That must be what’s happening tonight,’ said Flavia.
Lupus nodded his agreement and pointed at two yellow dogs happily gnawing marrowbones.
The sound of pipes and flutes guided them to a torchlit square crowded with couches and tables. Men, women and even children reclined on the couches, eating food and tossing scraps to the packs of dogs which had congregated there. A group of male musicians were playing pipes, flutes and drums, and nearby a man in a loincloth was juggling goose eggs. Lupus’s jaw dropped as two girls danced past; they wore only loincloths and they were bending so far back that their hands almost touched the ground.
The great statue of Anubis gazed sternly towards the river, like an angry father stoically ignoring the antics of his children. In the centre of the square, near a small sphinx with the Emperor Titus’s face, was a colourful notice board.
As Flavia wove through the tables towards this board, she glanced around nervously; most of the revellers were dressed in white linen and had their heads uncovered. She and her friends wore turbans and dusty tunics.
‘Don’t worry,’ came Seth’s voice in her ear. ‘I think they’re too drunk to notice us.’
Flavia nodded and leaned forward to read the board. There were various pieces of papyrus tacked to it. One announced the lease of a palm grove. Another offered interpretation of dreams. A third asked for information about a runaway slave called ‘Limping Heraclous’.
Then Flavia’s breath caught with excitement. The flickering torchlight was bright enough to show two lines at the bottom of the board, written in charcoal in the now familiar hand: Evil on four legs am I. As deadly on the river bank as in the Nile. Which land animal lacks a tongue? It is I!
Beneath the riddle was a drawing of Sobek and of a Seth animal.
‘I am a Crocodile!’ she cried. ‘The answer must be crocodile.’
‘And the Seth animal is for me,’ muttered Seth.
‘At least that means we’re still on the right track,’ said Flavia.
Jonathan shook his head. ‘But look how smudged the charcoal letters are. I’d guess we’re still at least two days behind them.’
‘Oh, no!’ cried Flavia. ‘They’re even further ahead than before.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Seth. ‘I think the townspeople have noticed us.’
Flavia followed his gaze and felt her blood chill at the sight of two dozen youths appearing from one of the dark side streets. They were moving menacingly towards her and her friends, and they all carried bows and arrows.
‘You!’ cried the leader of the archers. ‘You dog-eaters! How dare you come here on our holy day?’
Flavia was about to protest that she had never eaten dog in her life – or even considered such a thing – when she heard a voice behind her.
‘No! You have eaten our holy fish! Now you die!’
Flavia and the others whirled to see a group of men standing near the biggest banqueting couch. They carried spears and swords and wore leather cuirasses with the painted emblem of a sharp-nosed pike. One of them held up someone’s plate, and tipped it to show the bones of a fish. Already, people were screaming and running. Plates shattered and wine goblets clanged as they struck the hard-packed dirt. A dog yelped as one of the fish-men bent and cut its throat with his sword.
‘You kill our sacred dogs?’ bellowed the leader of archers. ‘Then y
ou DIE!’ He turned to his men. ‘Shoot them!’
‘Down!’ cried Seth, pushing Flavia. ‘Get down!’
She heard the whoosh of arrows flying overhead, and now Seth was pulling her towards the nearest street. ‘Run!’ he cried, his voice hoarse: ‘Run!’
Women were screaming and men were crying out. A spear glanced off an empty banqueting couch beside her and thudded to the ground. Flavia stumbled after Seth, Jonathan and Lupus, then tripped over a scavenging dog and fell awkwardly at the feet of the colossal Anubis. For a moment she was staring up at the torchlit underside of his lofty head, then hands were pulling her to her feet.
‘Come on, Flavia!’ wheezed Jonathan. ‘If we don’t get out of here, we’re dead.’
‘Well, we didn’t manage to get any provisions at Cynopolis,’ said Seth as they sailed up the moonlit river half an hour later. ‘But at least we got away with our lives.’
‘What on earth is happening back there?’ asked Nathan, from the stern. He held a dripping punt pole and was staring towards the town. They could all hear the screams and Flavia knew the growing orange light was from more than torches. The giant head of Anubis seemed to glare reproachfully at them as they moved slowly upriver. Flavia shuddered and made the sign against evil.
‘At first we thought it was us they were after,’ wheezed Jonathan. ‘But it was some men with leather breastplates and spears.’
Lupus grunted and pointed to his chest, then made a face like a fish.
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘They had fish painted on their breastplates.’
‘Oxyrhynchites!’ exclaimed Nathan. He pushed with his punt pole and sent Scarab gliding silently past moonlit reed beds. ‘They must have been Oxyrhynchites. The two towns are always at war. It’s because the citizens of Oxyrhynchus worship the sharp-nosed pike but eat dog meat.’
‘Whereas the people of Cynopolis,’ cried Seth excitedly, ‘eat fish and worship the dog! I read about this. They had a terrible battle once and as a fish-worshipper was fleeing the dog-worshippers tore him to pieces and ate him raw!’
‘Oh!’ cried Flavia. And although it was a warm night, she shivered.
Jonathan put a blanket around her shoulders and shook his head. ‘These Egyptians are crazy,’ he wheezed.
‘I don’t believe that story about cannibalism,’ said Nathan. ‘But people are killed during their battles. You were lucky to get away.’
‘Oh, I hope Nubia is safe,’ murmured Flavia. ‘Nathan, we found another riddle! But it looked at least two days old. We need to find Nubia before something terrible happens!’
As usual, Nubia went down to the water to fill the goatskins.
‘Why do you fear the river?’ she asked Chryses, when she returned to the clearing.
The eunuch poked the small fire. ‘I will tell you why I fear water,’ he said, ‘if you tell me about Aristo.’
‘Aristo?’ Nubia felt her face grow warm.
‘You called out his name in your sleep last night.’
‘I did?’
‘Yes,’ said Chryses. ‘You did.’
Nubia took a deep breath. ‘He is our tutor,’ she said. ‘He comes from Corinth in Greece. He is almost twenty-three. He plays very wonderful music.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘He has curly hair the colour of bronze and smooth tanned skin and brown eyes. He is taller than you or I, but not too tall. He is muscular, but not too muscular, and his legs are very fine.’
‘By Serapis!’ said Chryses. ‘He sounds like a Greek god.’
‘Yes,’ said Nubia solemnly. ‘He reminds me of statue of Mercury or Hermes.’
‘I suppose all the girls like him?’
‘All the girls like him,’ sighed Nubia. ‘All except Flavia. She likes Floppy.’
‘Floppy?’ said Chryses, and laughed. ‘She likes floppy men?’
‘No,’ said Nubia. ‘Flavia likes Gaius Valerius Flaccus. And he likes her. He asked her to marry him but she refused him.’
‘And who does Aristo like?’ asked Chryses.
‘Nobody. He used to love Miriam,’ said Nubia. ‘But she loved another and Aristo’s heart was wounded.’
‘Poor Aristo,’ said Chryses. ‘And poor Nubia.’
‘Why do you say “poor Nubia” to me?’
‘Because you love Aristo and your heart is wounded.’
‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘I love him. But it could never be.’
‘Why not?’ asked Chryses. ‘You’re one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. You are kind and gentle and good. Why shouldn’t he love you?’
Nubia had no words.
‘Did you ever tell him how you felt?’ asked Chryses.
‘I tried to, once,’ she whispered. ‘But then . . .’
‘What?’
‘I thought if I told him how I feel then we could not be friends.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I wanted to stay his friend.’
‘And you would have been happy to see him marry another, even though you loved him?’
‘No,’ whispered Nubia. The ache in her chest was almost too painful to bear.
‘Do you still love him?’
‘I will always love him,’ said Nubia.
‘Then you must do anything you can to gain his love,’ said Chryses fiercely. ‘Anything!’
Nubia stared wide-eyed at the eunuch. For the first time she felt a tremor of apprehension in his presence.
‘I have told you of Aristo,’ she said. ‘Now you must tell me why you fear water.’
Chryses sighed and nodded. ‘Do you remember that I was the slave of a rich Greek woman? And how we sailed on her barge from pyramid to temple, from sphinx to tomb, with me interpreting the hieroglyphs? Well, we were nearing a place called Thebes, passing tombs cut into the cliffs beside the river. My mistress ran to the side of the barge to look. Somehow she slipped and fell in the water . . . I called for the other servants. I reached out my hand. I tried to help her but I couldn’t save her. They were too quick for me.’
‘Who?’
‘The crocodiles. They devoured her before my eyes.’
After Cynopolis, Flavia and her friends began to see dom-fruit palm trees. Unlike date palms, the trunks of this type of palm were thin and forked and the leaves spikier. Each brown dom-fruit was about the size of a man’s fist. The pit was hard as rock, and inedible, but the chewy husk had a taste that reminded Flavia of Alma’s gingerbread.
One day they spotted a group of antelope that had come down to drink on the east bank. Jonathan was taking aim with a bow he had made but just as he was ready to loose the arrow, a crocodile rose up from beneath the water and took a young one in its fearsome jaws. The antelope thrashed and writhed but soon the water was full of blood and the crocodile swallowed his twitching prey almost whole.
They stopped bathing in the river after that.
Two days after the Ides, they spied a group of excited villagers standing on the riverbank looking at something in the water. When the crowd saw their boat approaching they began to yell and gesticulate.
‘Hippo,’ said Nathan suddenly, and pointed to wet brown humps rising from the surface of the river. ‘He’s not with the rest of his herd. Must be a rogue.’
He steered as close as he dared to the opposite bank, so close to the reeds that they sent a family of ducks flapping across the water.
‘Watch out for the evil ducks, Flavia!’ called Jonathan.
‘Ha ha,’ she muttered, not taking her eyes from the hippo, which was now only six boat lengths away.
The hippo blinked at them, but did not attack.
Flavia noticed that most of the children on the riverbank were naked and some of the men wore only tattered loincloths.
‘That hippo could feed those poor villagers for a week,’ said Nathan. ‘But they won’t kill him. They consider him to be sacred.’ He spat into the river and shook his head.
‘The Nile is the gift of Egypt,’ quoted Seth, and then added. �
��Herodotus said that.’
‘I’m hoping for a proper gift,’ said Nathan, and sang his treasure song.
While they scanned the riverbanks for signs of Chryses and Nubia, Nathan recounted stories of the Egyptian gods and Seth told them facts from Strabo and Herodotus. Seth also insisted that they speak only Greek. ‘Otherwise,’ he said, ‘anyone will know you are Roman the moment you open your mouths.’
‘But Nathan told us to keep our mouths shut when other people are around,’ protested Jonathan.
‘That’s right. But if you have to talk, I want your Greek to be faultless.’
The Sabbath came again, bringing the usual strong morning breeze and a silver half moon – like a bowl – sinking over the western horizon. They had made good time, but the charcoal riddles showed that Chryses and Nubia were still at least a day ahead. Seth agreed to let them sail, but he spent the day beneath his prayer shawl, reciting Torah and offering up Sabbath prayers.
The next day they reached Hermopolis, a town where the ibis-headed god Thoth was held sacred. It was also the site of a large Roman garrison and a toll station. As they approached it, Nathan cursed in Greek.
‘I was afraid of this.’
‘What is it?’ asked Flavia, looking up from her hieroglyphs.
‘They’re searching all the boats, and I only have room to hide two of you.’
Flavia lay with her knees touching her chin in one of Nathan’s storage areas under the bench of the Scarab. He had removed a false partition to one of his compartments and she had wriggled down inside as far as she could go. When he replaced the false wall she was plunged into darkness. It was dry here, but dusty and her nose suddenly prickled. She mustn’t sneeze! That would give away her location.
Presently she heard the resounding thud of the gangplank coming down and heavy footsteps, as two pairs of hobnail boots came on board.
‘From where have you come, and where are you going?’ asked an official-sounding voice in Greek.
‘From Memphis, sir. On our way to Tentyra,’ came Nathan’s voice. ‘We are three brothers going home for our mother’s birthday.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 231